Love is in Singles Appreciation Day

I would have liked to get this post done on the weekend, but it’s ok. Singles Awareness (and/or Appreciation) Day, or SAD (ha!), is often celebrated on February 15th anyway, as a protest against the commercialism of Valentine’s Day.

So anyway, cutsy oootsy look we’re a happy gaming couple blog posts are pretty common. And understandably so. Gaming as a couple is tons of fun. I refuse to date non-gamers for that very reason. To quote the Spice Girls, If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my guild. At least, I think that’s how that song went.

With the, um, Hallmark sponsored events of the past weekend, there’s been a temporary increase of LOOK AT MY WONDERFUL GAMING COUPLE LIFE across the blogosphere. As a result, I feel that there’s a need for a strong voice to represent those of us who do not play as a couple. Who, in fact, solo life as gracefully and effortlessly as Snottydin solo heals WoW.

Because, even though I’m convinced that there are a total of, like, three singles (myself included) who play World of Warcraft, we still deserve representation.

What does a single gamer look like?

It is rumored that the single male gamer looks like either this, or this. On rare occasions, he is rumored to look like this and to whisper obscenities to female characters played by men.

It is rumored that the single female gamer looks like either this, or this.

Those rumors could not be further from the truth. In fact, single male gamers all look like this:

And all of us single female gamers look like this:

True story. What can I say, we’re a modest bunch. We’re also not allowed to post pictures for fear of accusations about our ability to distinguish WoW and eHarmony.

While we’re on the topic, I would like to point out that, in my four years of playing WoW, I have met several players who suffered from the inability to disguish WoW and eHarmony. Most of them were already married.

The Challenges of being a Single Gamer

Ah, it is true, we are very strong, independent and resourceful. Still, some days are a little harder than others and seeing the habits of happy gaming couples may cause a little tint of green.

For example, having excuses for screwing up such as “Sorry XYZ was tickling me! Oh, XYZ stop it!” I would appreciate having easy excuses like that on hand . My “Sorry, my cat was tickling me! Oh, cat stop it!” doesn’t go over as smoothly.

Having to speak for ourselves all the time can get a little old too. We’ve all seen these couples where only one person says boo. “Oh, XYZ is going to get a drink. Oh, XYZ is on the phone. Oh, wait a second, XYZ has to go to the bathroom.” Once, some time ago, as I was leading a guild-only raid in Ulduar when I received the following whisper from a complete stranger in another guild: “Hey, I’m XYZ’s husband. She’s missing a buff right now, could you ask the person giving that buff to buff her?” SRSLY! I came pretty close to demanding she be /gkicked. New rule: if I have to ask for my own buffs, then so does everyone else.

But it’s not all bad

I know some days are hard. Still, dear fellow singletons, let us remember that some days are wonderful. Wonderful, for come what may, we have each other.

Each other. Our fellow singletons. Our friends with whom we’ll stay up until all hours of the night, drinking and laughing over Vent/Skype/telepathy and pwning n00bs in AV. (Or in my case, getting pwned by n00bs in AV.) We’re free to do as we wish with our friendships, no worries of hurting a third party. Never anyone reading over our shoulder. Never having to say “hang on, I need to check with the partner“. Never having to share out of obligation, only out of free will.

We’re never limited to a single gaming partner. Sure, we can have our bestest best friend. But we may have as many bestest best friends as we like. At the same time. At any hour of the day. Like Brittany Spears says: “What we do is innocent, just for fun and nothin’ meant. If you don’t like the company, let’s just do it you and me. You and me…Or three….Or four….- On the floor!”

And yes, she’s totally talking about hanging out with single friends in WoW.

Let Us Rejoice!

When I said we soloed life, I lied. We don’t solo life, we raid life. 100 player team, Wintergrasp style. And we pwn.

As lonely as it can get, I enjoy being a single gamer at the moment. My time is my own, more or less. Nobody’s going to throw a hissy fit if I don’t spend all my game time with them. I don’t have to consider the politics of playing the ‘well if you don’t invite THEM, you don’t get me’ bullshit that seems to fly in some raids.

Also, cats are a valid excuse for everything. Things I have said and heard regarding cats during raids:

Are there times when I wish I wasn’t single? Sure. When I find that special lady, it’ll be wonderful, but for now I’m content to be a single guy.

And since I have several lady friends, it’s nice not having to worry about someone over my shoulder drawing the wrong conclusions from everything. But then again, I wouldn’t let myself get involved with anyone like that.

Oh, and I’ll just let your imagination fill in the blanks as far as which of those descriptions of single dude gamers I fit…

Yes, the peace and quiet that comes with being single is lovely. I find myself missing that the rare times I’m in a relationship.

I left out drama intentionally but, yeeeess couples drama is the worst! What I especially hate about it is that the best, juiciest, most hilarious stories are the ones I’m not allowed to post on the blog.

Haha, my and my other half tend to keep any of that crap to RL. We game together sure, it’s fun, but we don’t tend to get overtly flirty ingame.. that’s what RL is for >.<

However, these 2 people who enjoy hanging around the North bank and /emoting each other and saying such wonderful words of wisdom as "/y WTB LUKE!" "/y WTB KATE!" *seethe* nobody cares kids, go into whispers, or gtfo. "Omg I saw a cat today it was really awesome it had wheels!" "Cats are awesome but not as awesome as you!" "Too right, I am awesome!" One of these days.. I swear I'm going to explode.

People like that are the reason single gamers start to resent couple gamers.

I am married and game with my husband, but the cat has provided far more (completely valid) excuses for holding up raids. Usually by puking with great sturm und drang, which has now become a running gag.

The best cat excuse, however, was the one that destroyed the computer of a raid leader I was pugging with. 25 man called on account of the main tank and RL’s computer was effectively flung across the room and generally wtfpwned by her cat.

My cat is actually pretty tolerant of my gaming. He’ll scratch his face with the screen, but thats about it. I had this one cat, though, who used to like to climb on my desk and chew on my mic while I was trying to raid.

We actually had to change feeding time because the cat and both dogs learned we would do almost anything to dispense with their pestering once headsets went on. So the instant that happened they would start stumping to be fed… three hours early.

The dogs were satisfied by total surrender and us just moving feeding time to just before our normal raiding time. The cat… well, he’s small and easily scruffed and removed from the desk.

I’m with Dristanel. As an all too often single gal, my time is my own, I don’t have to fight a jealous or confused bf who feels like he has to compete with the game and I don’t have to explain that RP’ing a relationship is not something he needs to get worried about (I don’t really do it anymore, but there was a time I RP’d dating and getting married to another player’s toon). I do hope that I get lucky enough to meet someone who either plays WoW or is a gamer of some stripe. Common interests for the win!

I’ve played with couples before and it’s never been too annoying. It’s actually been handy, since if one is on and we need the other for a raid, they can yell for their significant other and voila!

Still not fond of V-day, though. It’s generally a downer for my single self.

Thats what Singles Awareness/Appreciation Day is for! To be honest, I’ve discovered that I prefer V-days when I’m single because I’m allowed to spoil my friends rotten and not feel bad. One year, I sent flowers to my best friend just because I could. This year I got really caught up in the Secret Admirer event which was tons of fun.

I’ve had convenient experiences with couples like that too. Typically they also play well together, which is a huge help.

I am not quite sure what I would do with a gamer GF I have never really found one to be honest. The last girl gamer I met at my work was terribly shy. Even though I found her attractive she was like almost a shut in outside of work

Seems girl gamers are more likely to hide the fact they play than male gamers. Oh well! I have met some amazing women who were gamers however. Now if they all weren’t married, engaged or dating…oh wait single life rocks!

I’ve notice girl gamers lie about their gaming more than guy gamers too. And yeah, it does seem like the majority of female gamers are committed. Actually, until I posted this and received comments from fellow female singletons, I thought I was the only one.